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Please click through to enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for March 25, 2013.

So, who’s up for a paragraph about how stupid it is to have a guy who is a retired legend and also still the toughest and smartest and funniest and coolest guy and the show AND ALSO THE KAYFABE BOSS OF EVERYONE ELSE ON THE SHOW

The logical way to end HHH brutalizing Paul Heyman is Brock jumping HHH and getting over on HHH because HEEL! But GOD FORBID HHH not be the smartest, most aware badass who ever lived.

How adorable is AJ when she sits on the second rope, and her feet don’t reach the mat? Totally, that’s how adorable. …I’m sure it’s been said, but an AJ/Kaitlyn match at Mania is maybe the only option for Divas match (with the current roster) that wouldn’t be a massive bathroom break match.

I was reminded last night that the Mania preshow is an hour (is that correct– does anyone know for sure?). I’m suddenly kind of scared that matches I want to see– like the Divas match, or a Cesaro match– will be pushed to YouTube and the stupid app.

What really pissed me off last night was HHH standing in the ring saying how the stipulation didn’t scare him, how he actually came out on top of that stipulation, and how he was totally unafraid of any potential ramifications if he lost.

It really illustrates how he genuinely seems to believe he is the toughest, smartest, coolest, guy in the locker room, and nothing can change that.

He might actually lose. I think he was disappointed at SummerSlam that he didn’t get a proper “this is the end of my career” sendoff, which he then confirmed by showing up on RAW the next night and literally saying, “this is the end of my career.” So now he wants his career to actually end in the ring, and what better way than trying to get revenge on WWE’s most unstoppable monster and legit toughest guy, and not coming out on top?

I’m kidding, of course. It’ll go the way of Lesnar vs. Cena. He’ll be a bloody, broken mess, but will hit the sledgehammer “from out of nowhere!”, hit a pedigree, go drink a bottle of water, crawl across the ring apron slowly, then go for the cover and get the 1, 2, 3.

You joked about two things at Wrestlemania that sound completely plausible in the context of WWE in 2013: Ryder backstage with the guys from Duck Dynasty (though that might make more sense next year in NOLA if Ryder and Duck Dynasty are both still things) and Macklemore shoving Heath Slater off of something. Obviously it’s sad that either of those things are possible or even plausible given WWE’s track record, but if either thing happens, I will LOL forever remembering that you brought them up here in your WL column first.

Last year we had two musical performances; maybe they’re cutting back on the filler. But, I don’t remember how far before the event we knew Flo Rida and MGK were performing; so maybe they’ll still announce someone. I hope not.

If Mark Henry loses at Mania, you guys will get to see “Worst: That time I had to drag Danielle kicking and screaming from the biggest spectacle in all of wrestling and they wouldn’t let us back in, so I had to watch the rest in the hotel room” in Brandon’s Mania report.

During this Q&A session, The Rock finally said something to Cena that I had been waiting for ever since he returned: “Who in the Hell do you think you’re talking to?” I loved that moment because the thing about this Rocky/Cena “saga,” is Cena has been the heel from the start. When we thought Rocky was done with wrestling (and honestly I was glad to see him go, because he left at a time when shit felt pretty scary for our favorite wrestlers), Cena was the one questioning Rocky’s love for the business. As far as we knew, dude was RETIRED. Dafuq is that about?

But yeah…we’re at a head now. The way this narrative has shaped up, Cena’s the one to do something desperate and heelish. The WWE has painted itself into a corner and it’ll be interesting to see how they paint themselves out. It’d take Mephisto to avert a heel turn, at this point.

Moreover, if I may, I wanna put this out there for anybody here who is both a Primetime Players fan and planning to attend WrestleMania. I have a friend whose Twitter handle is @ElKatook. He is crossing off an item on his Bucket List this year by going to WrestleMania 29, and he wants to organize the World’s Biggest Million Dollar Shuffle. Feel free to hit him up on Twitter to try and organize it…and bring a whistle!

I honestly thought going into this segment “Oh jeez, ending on an interview, this is going to be wooonnnderrrrfuuulllll…” *yawn, time for bed*

It ended up being a pleasant surprise where they didn’t come up with 15 different references for their respective junk. The “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” moment woke everything up. It made me think Cena is going to do ANYTHING IT TAKES to win this match, including selling his soul to the devil himself (or I’d settle for The Shield…don’t make Cena the “leader”, just let him hire those delicious guns-for-hire to do what they do best. I want to see children in tears by the end of WM gosh darn it!)

Also, I am friends with @ElKatook, I will be joining him in crossing off “Attending Wrestlemania” from the bucket list, and I will be joining in on the Million Dollar Shuffle! I’m hoping to meet as many WithLeather readers/commenters as possible since I already spend my Monday evenings with this lovely band of misfit toys. Will you please join us? Maybe we can rank up there with such awesome Touts as “Sassy Black Man with a dog”…

Ooh! Ooh! Anybody wanna throw a ‘fro wig and some coveralls into this mix? With one glorious move, we can legitimize Tout for just one night! MILLIONS OF DOLLARS! MILLIONS OF DOLLARS! MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!

I think (fervently hope) that Orton doesn’t turn until after the match out of frustration at losing, because Randy Orton has a documented history of being a terrible stable leader. (How’s that Legacy thing working out for you, Ted and Cody?) Also, I think Shield are currently above Orton on the kayfabe totem pole. (Rock, Cena, Brock, Taker, and HHH are the only guys who get sold harder than the Shield right now, which is why I’m convinced there’s going to be a Rock/Cena vs Shield match at the ppv after WM.)

Cena isn’t turning heel. It’s nice of them to tease us with the possibility, because this feud is so dull, but turning Cena now makes even less sense than the Austin turn at WM 17. There is nobody close to being a big enough face to compete with Cena as a heel. Punk is rumored to be out for a while, and would have to do such a 180° from smarmiest man on Earth. Anyone else beating Cena would be such a huge upset that it would cut the legs out from under Cena’s turn. And if they just had him rule WWE as a heel, well, that’s how half the audience sees him already, but the other half buys tons of his merchandise, so why give that up?

I want to clarify that Austin’s turn made sense from a storyline perspective, and was quite good character work. It just didn’t make sense from a business perspective, because he was the hottest face in the world and the majority of the audience wanted to see him keep attempted homicide-ing HHH and Vince.

NWOSTINGER – Your idea intrigues me and I’d love to actually see how to accomplish this. I may be misremembering Hart’s heel turn but didn’t he just hate Americans? Who are the people Cena can turn against without antagonizing the children that seem to be his target audience? The idea seems solid in theory but I’d like to hear more about the actual execution before I’d buy into that plan.

We discussed the WM17 Austin heel turn comparison to Cena possibly turning heel at work today and everyone had 2 problems with it.

1) Like has been mentioned there is no one the WWE thinks could battle him on equal ground as a face. And if they didn’t do it vs the Rock last year with Punk as a huge babyface to face him as well, then they’ll never do it.

2) None of us thought the WWE had the balls to do that again since they all thought Austin’s turn was such a flop.

I also have real doubts that Cena can/would be a good heel. I just picture him as trying to be the Kevin Nash in the nWo or Triple in DX kind of heel where he is doing bad stuff to try to look cool while also booking himself to look stronger than anyone else.

The problem that I personally had with the final Cena-Rock segment was just that I was so, so bored the entire time. I understand that Cena was probably saying some good stuff. But if you’re going to have a segment on your wrestling show that doesn’t involve wrestling last that long, it better be riveting as shit. This was not, to me anyway. I don’t know, I just want WrestleMania to be over so this feud can be over. I just can’t bring myself to care about either of these guys at all. I’m not convinced that anything will change with Cena either. I think he’ll just win the title, come back to Raw the next day and say “SOME PEOPLE LIKE ME AND SOME PEOPLE DON’T” and go back to pissing in Dolph Ziggler’s cereal.

I think I’m the only person here that doesn’t hate HHH like everyone else. Despite knowing he’ll get his revenge on Brock at WM, because that’s how wrestling works, I really don’t have a problem with him doing any of the shit he’s been doing.

The most ridiculous thing from last night was Jericho running out TO HIS MUSIC QUEUE. Dude, if you just want to attack Fandango because of what he did, then just run out there. Don’t tell the music guy to queue your shit up before you go.

Speaking of, Fandango’s surprise attack on Jericho at Smackdown was the greatest thing in a long time. He had guys come out and set up his golden spangly curtain for him to “sneak” attack from and NO ONE NOTICED.

Lester – A meatball falls off of Brock’s Jimmy John’s sammich. It’s like he WANTS the ants to be there!
Johhny – I’m pretty sure the ants are radioactive…I don’t know how else they would get so big. Unclear as to how Nikki Bella became “enhanced” & not Brie…ant bite maybe?

I was really hoping that you would find a way to work in “X-Pac tore his anus while working a Jerry Lynn retirement show” into the write-up, though I’m not entirely sure how it would have come up organically.

It’s been a rough month for DX. Their glorious, super-smart, tough and cool leader pissed himself on live TV and their greasy rat underling tore his B-hole at the Minneapolis Convention Center while honoring a man whose biggest claim to fame is “wrestled RVD a whole bunch.” Also, the New Age Outlaws has the mess kicked out of them by Brock Lesnar after being ridiculed by Rhodes Scholars.

Attn all remaining DX fans: these are the people that you (still) think were legit the funniest, coolest people on the show.

Kinda surprised you didn’t mention Cena calling the entire WWE fanbase idiotic assholes. “You don’t care if somebody carries your franchise to the endgame, all you care about is ‘what have you done for me TODAY’.” It’s not really a heel turn, though, because the audience is all “Yup” and the WWE writers are all “Yup”, so….?

But yeah, man, Bret hard… so sad when he had to look down at his notes to remember what he was supposed to say. And right on about pretty much everything else in the article. (I though it was assumed that I agree with you on all this stuff, but then I realized that communication is a two-way street and if I don’t say it you don’t know it, so I’d better say it. Also also, I wanna join all y’all for lunch before ‘Mania.)

“Last night was a solid 0.8. Most of what he’s saying is total horseshit — the Undertaker being at a psychological disadvantage for “the first time in his career” despite people having done the “steal the urn” gag multiple times and BETTER, like when Mankind stole the urn AND Paul Bearer, or the time Kama The Supreme Fighting Machine stole it and smelted it or whatever to make a gold chain — but he means it, and he can express it compellingly. The promo really peaks when he says the urn doesn’t matter to him and throws it down, because yeah, objectively it’s pretty hilarious that 18,000 people went “oooh” because the zombie mortician supernatural guy had one of his props disrespected, but contextually it means the shit is on. I still think Punk has a 0% chance of winning at Mania, but I’ll have a lot of fun hoping I’m wrong.”

I don’t know if anyone else has brought this up yet but what Punk is doing is different, its kind of what Jericho was doing to him at last years Wrestlemania. He’s pissing off Taker so badly that Taker’s liable to make mistakes or get DQ’d, or even counted out. Punk even mentioned it last week with his promo video, I mean, I know its not going to happen but making fun of Taker’s dead manager could piss him off to the point were he’s sloppy so I think he really does have the psychological edge here.

Watch them try to give everyone a heart attack by having Dolph give DBry the Zigzag as soon as the opening bell rings. Everyone will get Sheamus flashbacks until Kane breaks up the pin. OH MAN, THAT WOULD BE SO HORRIBLE, BUT NOW I WANT TO SEE THIS HAPPEN!

Remember when it was Sheamus/Ziggler and they set it up like D-Bry’s WM match with the bell ringing and him getting a kiss from Vickie on the apron and turning around just as Sheamus came at him with a brogue kick, but then he rolled out of the ring and it was the best thing ever? That was the best thing ever.

a) To remind viewers of the of the importance of the hall of fame;
b) To use the gravitas of the hall of famers to promote Cena-Rock; and
c) To provide an explanation for the motivations of Cena for this match.

From a storytelling perspective, I thought it made a certain sense. Cena’s convinced that the Rock is incapable of beating him when he wrestles his best match. It has eaten at him since he failed at Wrestlemania. He finally breaks and admits it to the world (in front of the legends of the sport) and is almost immediately bested by the Rock in a physical confrontation.

If you’re trying to tell a story about Cena’s redemption, you could certainly do much worse. My general feeling from reading the boards is that the vast majority of people reading Withleather simply have no interest in that story.

@burgermike
Might be the Cena heel turn teasing. It’s confusing to see the guy respond like an actual human being (or more accurately an approximation of one in a pro-wrestling enviroment), especially after so many years of Hustle, Loyalty, Respect being his default mode of thought. Puts people off, so they don’t know what they’re supposed to be seeing (and we’re probably not seeing anything, since he’ll probably return to normal after his win)

@blackhawksfan
It’s really more the fact that Cena has nothing to redeem himself for. He lost to The Rock last year, had a standard (great) year after that other than not being WWE Champion, then suddenly he enters the cycle for his rematch against The Rock and had “the worst year ever guys, seriously”. An actually bad year and everybody would be on board. As it is, the story is disingenuous.

I think Johnny Slider nails why this story doesn’t work well…it’s hard for Cena to do a redemption story when his need for “redemption” is that he screwed up being SuperCena and lost because he wanted to taunt Rock while beating him. (Which is exactly Cena’s take on the whole match.)

I think a redemption angle for Cena could work, but it would require Cena to break his SuperCena character. If Cena had gone for something along the lines of his loss to Rock making him wonder if his best is actually good enough and that this seed of doubt is what made him unable to beat Punk for the WWE title, what made him so bothered by Laurinaitis bringing back Lesnar to restore “legitimacy” to the WWE and what made him so determined to get a rematch with Rock…he needs this win so that he knows his best is good enough. He could even tease that without a win over Rock he might never get back to his pre-WM level of domination. (It could even account for the fact that his “worst year ever” was a year that anyone but Punk would have killed for, while also providing some justification for why such a year could seem so bad to Cena.)

The problem is that for it to work, Cena would have to be able to show vulnerability and be able to convince that he has doubts about his own ability. I’m not sure he could pull that off, but it could be a decent story if Cena could make vulnerable believable.

Thanks to you both. I needed to see this argument more fully developed before I understood what the issue was.

I guess I still see the storyline somewhat differently because I don’t believe you have to slip to the bottom before redemption is entirely possible. The example that jumps to my mind is Marian Hossa’s Stanley Cup win but Peyton Manning’s reputation prior to winning the Superbowl is an example that more people are likely familiar with. You can be dominant without reaching your professional goals if you continuously fail on the big stage.

From a purely kayfabe standpoint, this was a terrible year for Cena. It’s easy to point to Cena’s successes over the past year and say every other athlete would have killed for his year. He remained the biggest star in the company and won more often than not. However, he failed to beat the Rock at the biggest event of the year and then failed to win the title despite being given multiple opportunities (Summerslam, Raw 1000, Night of Champions and Survivor Series). Cena’s general air of invincibility and usual dominance on Raw makes it harder to notice but it was clearly a down year for the guy who had been the face of the promotion. If your goal is winning the Superbowl, winning the Stanley Cup or winning the World Championship, anything less than that is going to be a disappointment.

I get the idea that many people react to Cena as they’re Leela reading about Fry’s overpowered delivery boy. I’m also 90% convinced that I would be more entertained by a full on heel turn. However, once you’ve decided that you want to book Cena-Rock 2 for this Wrestlemania and that you want them both to be faces, I’m not sure you could do a better job booking John Cena than the WWE has.

The Best part of the Final Segment was when Booker T whispered something to Dusty Rhodes. Then they both laughed and then Booker T asked John Cena Why he has to beat the Rock to test his mic skills. And to be honest that I have to line was really, really corny…. I mean Rock wasn’t good either but damn…..Booker put him on the spot. And thats why it was my favorite part.

Important Question about Your Donations, Brandon. What money is considered too little? I want to contribute something to show my appreciation for your work, but I don’t want it to be so little that you think of me as a cheep bastard. Are we talking two-digits, three-digits or is a comma involved?

If HHH keeps everything as short as he did last night, I’m fine with it. I’m not amazingly excited for the match at mania, but i don’t think it will be bad by any means. The nature of Brock being the best natural bad guy in the world will get the crowd into it. HHH may be the world’s biggest asshole in real life, but I’m sure the match will be decent.

Self aware Kaitlyn is the best. A week or so ago, WWE Inbox asked ‘Which Superstar has the best entrance”? Kaitlyn’s response was something to the effect of ‘Not me, because all I do is spin around a lot”.

I think the Ryback/Henry match ending should depend on Ryback’s Shellshock ability. As much as I love Mark Henry and as bored as I am with Ryback, if Ryback can legit Shellshock Mark Henry, he deserves that win. If he can’t, 20 consecutive World’s Strongest Slams.

“What’s the worst thing Big Show’s ever done? Hug Hulk Hogan too hard with the help of a tall mummy?”
HA HA HA XD
I’ve been visiting old “are you serious” episodes (that youtube show where road dogg and josh mathews make fun of the past, god how much I love it !) earlier today .. and I’ve seen that specific moment ! so I just couldn’t help but laugh my ass off when I read you writing about it here XD

I don’t know if you remember this, guys (you may have jocked about it as much until you were satisfied !) … but I didn’t have PS3 until last month (FINALLY !) (I’m 16 years old so shut up) .. and I finally got to play wwe 12 (not 13 … 12)
and at one point, triple h comes back from retirment at the main event of wrestlemania ! and he buries the wwe champion, the world heavyweight champion, the intercontinental champion, the united states champion (which is the european champion there !) and the tag team champions all together !!! because sheamus has won all those titles at once at that same night ! but god forbid that triple h let’s anyone else have his moment …
he also retires again after 3 weeks only ! so, him kicking the IC champion in the nuts for no reason here is nothing surprising …

They should’ve just had Jericho feud with Ziggler, Barrett, and Cesaro in addition to his program with whogivesafuck because Y2J is the only guy who is over that is willing to job to guys below him on the card. Give him like 6 matches at Mania, let them all be Match of the Year worthy, and then make him the new RAW GM so RAW is Jericho can actually be a thing that exists.

Is it really impossible for Punk to win? Better to lose to him than HHH.

I would just be so happy if Punk could ride 20-1 to weekly .95 PIF for at least a few months, which he could totally do. I know Taker wants to give it up to a young guy, 34yo Punk might the closest he’ll get.

Brandon, I am totally with you on Ryback not being able to deliver a Shellshock to Mark Henry. But I’ll bet they’ve been practicing / rehearsing somewhere and they’ve come to the same conclusion. I’ll bet money that the conclusion of the match features a work-around that still tries super hard to sell Ryback’s strength though – maybe Henry’s sitting on the top turnbuckle (or standing on the middle ropes in the corner) and Ryback lifts him from there.
Either way, yeah, they cannot afford to have Ryback botch a Shellshock on Henry at the PPV and then have Ryback just stand there completely furious, unsure of what to do next and yelling “STUPID!!!” at Mark Henry.
And, to the Cena-turning-heel concept. The worst part about Cena is that I would still hate his guts even if he turned heel. And I think a lot of people would, too. It’s not like Hollywood Hogan’s turn where it completely rejuvenated Hogan. Hogan had the legit badass / coolness of the brand-spanking-new NWO to ease is transition to badguy; if you thought The Outsiders were awesome then you had to love Hogan throwing up a huge “fuck you” to everyone by spraypainting the belt and playing it like a guitar. But Cena doesn’t have that – oh god, it just hit me – unless WWE creative decides to have Cena join The Shield. Ugh. That idea makes me want to wipe my own memory banks. Anyhow, yeah, I think Cena’s problem isn’t the Super Cena character so much as it’s just…him. With his half-ass shoulder tackles and his lame five-knuckle shuffle (which is a direct rip-off of The People’s Elbow – of course, lots of other people have ripped off the bounce-off-the-ropes-and-drop-a-weak-attack-that’s-suddenly-a-match-ender-because-it-has-a-name-now tactic) and his stupid soft-loud-soft-LOUD style of ‘charismatic’ speaking (which he also painfully obviously ripped off from The Rock – and I wish The Rock would call him on that, oh, that would be sweet). I mean, seriously, fuck Cena. Fuck good-guy Super Cena. Fuck bad-guy Whatever Cena. The WWE had it’s chance a while back when they were playing up the “let go and embrace the hate John Cena” angle. Now, though, everyone’s heard Cena say “Some people love me. Some people hate me. That’s okay, I love all the fans equally.” bullshit and wear enough ‘Rise Above Hate’ merch to make a heal turn seem completely farcical.

And here’s my thoughts on Barrett. The WWE is punishing him. He’s done something to offend McMahon that’s not serious enough to be fired over but somewhere above (or below) being made to wear a stupid blue mask and flowery cape. I mean, they have to be punishing him for something. It makes absolutely no sense at all to be so obviously trying to degrade the appeal of a character as hard as they have been with Barrett. And after I wrote a pretty decent way to build Barrett to main-eventer last week…this is how the WWE repays me for completely unsolicited advice?! Having Barrett get humiliated by Mr. Pee Pants for no apparent reason?! I’m totally down-borrowing the next PPV. So there.

“I like the idea that Kaitlyn, Daniel Bryan and Kane have to all share the same dressing room because they’re ostensibly “good guys,” but they’re all terrible people. Kane is a murderous, fire-bringing rapist, Daniel Bryan emotionally abused his girlfriend and has rage/image issues, and Kaitlyn will just insult people to their face and start yammering on about how her old friend is a bitch to anyone who’ll listen.”

It’s like a locker room Seinfeld. Add Brad Maddox as the Kramer of the group and I WOULD WATCH EVERY EPISODE.